Russia Not ‘Directly’ Responsible for Shooting Down MH17

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Senior U.S. intelligence officials have a verdict on Russia’s involvement in the MH17 tragedy, and it’s a relatively good one for Russia. According to their investigations, there’s no direct evidence linking Ukraine’s much larger, aggressive neighbor to the missile attack that downed the Kuala Lumpur–bound Malaysia Airlines passengerplane.

A bit loose with the word meaning of direct, intel officers said that Russia had “created the conditions” for the incident by supplying weapons to the rebels. Apparently the jury is still out on whether there were any Russians present in Donetsk when the missile was fired, or whether the rebels had been trained inRussia.

But yes, in the sense that Vladimir Putin did not hit a secret red button himself and actually propel the missile into space, Russia is not directly responsible for the fall ofMH17.